Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Let me reassure the noble Lord that I have yet ever to find him outrageous. The truth is that the debate we would have had on these issues is, of course, necessarily truncated. I want to reassure the noble Lord that we are very concerned about the whole issue of freedom of speech. If one looks at the issues on which we agree and disagree, one finds that we agree that the issue of racial and religious hatred is very important and that freedom of speech is equally important. The question is: how do we balance it and have we got it right? The debate centres around those issues. I can reassure the noble Lord that his passion for freedom of speech is shared by many on all sides of the Houses, and is particularly strongly held by those who sit on these Benches.